Two summer schools and nine workshops planned for this summer and the next academic year.
After winter break, we returned to the permanent location of the Brin Mathematics Research Center—a fully remodeled, beautiful space in the Computer Science Instructional Center.
Our first spring semester workshop brought computational mathematicians and chemists for a meeting on “Rare Events.” Such events occur rarely on the timescale of the system but may affect the system most dramatically. This became a very active area of research due to the adaptation of ideas from data science and machine learning. The workshop was beautifully organized by Maria Cameron (Mathematics) and Pratyush Tiwary (Chemistry and Biochemistry/Institute for Physical Science and Technology).
Our second workshop was organized by Leonid Koralov (Mathematics) and Lenya Rhyzik (Stanford) on “Branching Processes.” Branching processes are mathematical tools used to model the evolution of particle systems with applications in biology, chemistry and other sciences. This workshop attracted a very dynamic group of junior researchers. The workshop was also attended by Henri Berestycki, who will be joining our department as a Visiting Professor for the next five years.
Abba Gumel (who holds the Michael and Eugenia Brin Endowed Chair in Mathematics) and Bill Fagan (Biology) organized a workshop on “Human Behavior and Disease Dynamics.” While it is true that the COVID-19 pandemic is decaying (at least for now), this work is necessary to prepare for the next pandemic. This workshop also featured our alum Simon Levin (Princeton) as a Distinguished Brin MRC Lecturer with a talk on “The Mathematics of Consilience.”
The month of May started with a workshop on “Partial Hyperbolicity,” an area within dynamical systems. We were very fortunate to have Michael Brin (Mathematics) join us for this workshop. This was no coincidence as partial hyperbolicity is exactly his area of expertise. This beautiful gathering of experts in dynamical systems was organized by Dima Dolgopyat (Distinguished University Professor of Mathematics), Federico Rodriguez Hertz (Penn State University) and Amie Wilkinson (University of Chicago).
Our last workshop of the semester was on “Frontiers of Numerical Partial Differential Equations.” Organized by Howard Elman (AMSC/Computer Science), Tobias von Petersdorff (Mathematics), and several former students (Andrea Bonito, Enrique Otarola, Abner Salgado, and Shawn Walker), this workshop brought together numerical analysists to celebrate the 70th birthday of Ricardo Nochetto. Congratulations Ricardo! This summer we will host two summer schools on partial hyperbolicity and fluid dynamics.
For the next academic year, we planned nine workshops and three summer schools. This impact on the research profile of our department is already noticeable. We could not have hoped for a better start for the first academic year of the Brin Mathematics Research Center.
